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Which Costs More: Paying Overtime or Bringing in Temp Help?

Your business could use a few more hands. You’re entering your busy season, or you’ve just received an unexpected avalanche of orders, and you need to add a little hustle to your workplace in order to stay on top and come out ahead. So how should you handle this temporary spike in your labor requirements? Should you pay overtime for your existing teams, or should you reach out and bring on a few temporary employees who will be paid a regular hourly wage and then leave when your level of demand returns to normal? As you make your decision, keep the following considerations in mind.

Don’t Break Your Budget

Paying overtime can work well for you if your current employees are able and willing to put in the extra hours required to get the job done. But if this extra load is burdensome for them, and you’re paying more than you can afford in order to keep them in the workplace after hours, stop and reconsider. Weigh the cost required to train your temp staff—which may not be as high as you imagine—and keep in mind that your temporary employees will be happy to share the load.

Lay the Groundwork for Future Hiring Plans

If there’s a chance that your elevated needs are permanent, not temporary at all, then you’ll eventually need to create and staff some new full time positions. And when you do, you’ll be facing an unknown candidate pool and you’ll need to make your decision based on nothing more than resumes and 30 minute interviews. But temporary staffing can reduce your risk. As you get to know your temp staff on a personal level and see them in action, you may be able to hire some of them full time—after you’ve gained a mutual level of trust.

Temporary Staffing Means Reduced Paperwork

When you partner with a trusted staffing agency, the agency handles payroll, tax reporting, and other issues that can slow you down. The candidate is technically employed by the agency, not by you, so you can leave the paperwork to us and keep your attention focused where it belongs: on your business.

Stay Flexible

One of the most difficult challenges of rising and falling business demand is a human concern: what happens after the demand subsides? If you hire full time employees or increase the salaries of your current staff, you’ll need to scale back eventually when your business contracts. But when you take on temporary staff, your workers are simply reassigned by the agency. They stay flexible and mobile and so do you.

Need to know more about establishing a relationship with a temporary staffing agency? Contact the experienced business management professionals at PSU.

 

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